Accuracy is a range, not a number
Vendors love to quote a single accuracy figure. In reality accuracy depends on audio quality, accents, jargon and the language being spoken. The same tool can be excellent on clear English and mediocre on a noisy multilingual call.
The metric to know: word error rate
Word error rate, or WER, is the share of words that are wrong, missing or inserted compared to a reference transcript. A lower WER means a better transcript. It is the fairest way to compare tools, even though most vendors do not publish it.
What you can control
Good microphones, one speaker at a time and a quiet room improve accuracy more than switching tools. Adding custom vocabulary for names and product terms also helps a lot.
When to test yourself
If your meetings are in a language other than English or full of domain jargon, run your own test recording through two or three tools before deciding. Our comparison shows which tools cover the most languages.